Food + Drink

Staff Pick

Best Use of Pork

Gold Cash Gold

The pig has long been known by the Irish as “the tenant who pays the rent” for its multitude of potential uses. Gold Cash Gold embraces this idea. Chef Stockton’s pigs are raised by his father, and treated with the utmost respect, and their warmth pervades the menu: Pork fat peanuts, pork cheeks, pork rillettes, terrines, and head-cheese croquettes, pork chops on special, pork fat streusel on a buttermilk pie. At brunch, there’s pig’s head pierogies, a ham and cheese sandwich, and chorizo frittata. This is not just cooking, this is not just art. This is sublime and wonderful, a worship of pork as a gift from something greater. Each time it appears in a dish, subtle technique is used to preserve the pork’s flavor and quality, to highlight its versatility, and to make the most of the high-quality animals that the chef’s father raises. With apologies to those who abstain from pork for whatever reason: There is nothing better.